Aroma therapy
Salsa and Euro easy-listening music, splashes of bright colours, a Sicilian chicken and sun-dried tomato sandwich and a frothy coffee are the main ingredients of an Aroma café.
Launched in London in 1991, they are the brainchild of a cerebral thirtysomething whose cultural identity is pan-Alpine and trans-Atlantic.
Born in Austria, bred in Switzerland and tutored in both the UK and the USA, Michael Zur-Szpiro embodies cosmopolitanism and projects a passion for café society.
Having come to study at the London School of Economics in the 1970s, homesickness for the familiar cosy coffee houses of his native Zug in Switzerland planted the seed in his mind.
He recalls: "I really missed the Swiss café culture and couldn't understand why it didn't exist in London. At home such cafés play the role that pubs do here but it's a much less threatening environment. The whole issue began to nag at me and I had this dream of starting up a coffee house chain."
The dream went into storage for over a decade while Zur-Szpiro the graduate headed to the USA for further study.
Picking up an MA in economics and an MBA, he began a seven-year stint as a consultant in the media and financial services sector in Boston.
The return to the UK speaks volumes. While admitting that doing business in the USA would be easier than here, he also feels that the British market in selling coffee has more potential. Yet his real motives for coming "home" were more complex.
"I didn't want to live in the USA. I am a European and have different values to those of Americans," he says.
"London is a very tough place to do business but it's also a beautiful large city and a half-way house between the USA and Europe. It's a great place."
Barely four years old, the Aroma empire has nine outlets and four staff catering contracts. Serving clients such as ITN and a US music TV station, the portfolio is geared towards the arts and media.
Due to swing into operation in February is a prestigious contract at London's South Bank Centre, where it will take charge of public food and drink outlets. Mobile espresso carts are also in the pipeline.
For the time being, all Aroma's coffee and sandwich bars are in central London, except one site at Essex's Thurrock Lakeside shopping mall. Looking ahead into 1995, Zur-Szpiro hopes to see a couple more units by spring in "villagey parts of London".
Wherever the Aroma name appears, Zur-Szpiro is crystal clear about what it should signify. He says: "We want to offer a 15-minute holiday in the sun so that people will feel good."
Pointing through the dripping windows towards Watches of Switzerland opposite his Piccadilly shop, he says: "Outside it's raining; people are having a bad morning. They don't want to have to queue for 15 minutes to watch somebody make a sandwich with dirty hands and a bad attitude."
Typical customer base is 60% female, between 25 and 45, probably professional and certainly cosmopolitan. Average spend is ú3-ú5 while group turnover is "several million" according to Zur-Szpiro.
His watchwords are "solid and prudent growth". Future expansion across the UK is likely, he says, but in "clusters" such as the critical mass he has built in London.
Although both founder and managing director, he is also partly answerable to his backers, venture capital fund Apax Partners and a small ring of private investors.
